The consummate scholarship of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. has reinforced strong tendencies to focus on the histories of marketing practices of high-profile, high-volume firms and those working with them, such as advertising agencies. While Chandler’s work can inform all marketing historians’ work, it has major limitations and critics. Differing responses to and uses of Chandler’s work map out terrain of marketing history scholarship, including its divisions. One major divide falls between scholars whose academic efforts focus on marketing techniques and strategies and those whose primary focus specializes in historical analysis. Richard Tedlow, whose work owes much to Chandler, successfully employs both methodologies. Scholars on both sides of the divide could benefit by learning more of each other’s expertise.
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